Reinforced fabric and laminate made therewith

Abstract

A unidirectional reinforcing fabric and a resinous laminate made therewith, which fabric includes a weft knit yarn fabric formed of a multiplicity of weft knit stitches and a multiplicity of parallel longitudinally extending warp inserts held in said weft knit fabric. A bi-directional fabric is also disclosed which includes in addition to the above a multiplicity of parallel transversely extending weft inserts. Each insert includes a multiplicity of continuous monofilaments extending longitudinally in parallel relation with respect to one another without crimp or twist and grouped closely together so that the outline cross-sectional configuration of the group is approximately in the shape of an elongated rectangle. Each monofilament of each insert is formed from a material taken from the group consisting of glass, carbon and aramid and has a cross-sectional diameter of between 0.00032' and 0.00095'. Each insert has the thickness of the rectangular cross-sectional configuration thereof between 0.003' and 0.38', the width of the rectangular cross-sectional configuration thereof between 0.009' and 0.75' and a ratio of width-to-thickness of between 2 and 30. The total width of the warp inserts per yard width of fabric is between 55% and 98%. The total width of the weft inserts per yard length of fabric is between 55% and 98%.